Predicate

[Guest guest]

It’s pushing two

and I’m pushing through

that film of dreams

that always streams

in real time, contingent,

exclusively,

on the angle of Your tell-a-vision,

twisted double over,

twined divine

by the Mime, Drunk

on the Double Spiritus-I-lixer

with rabbit-ear twizzlers that Hear

the slightest sound

indicating,

educating,

predicating,

that God’s around.

 

The Metta version:

 

It’s pushing two

and I’m pushing through

that film of dreams

that always streams

in real time, contingent,

exclusively,

on the angle of Your tell-a-vision,

twisted double over,

twined divine

by the Mime, Drunk

on the Double Spiritus-I-lixer

with rabbit-ear twizzlers that Hear

the slightest sound

indicating,

educating,

predicating,

that God’s not around.

 

"Twin-Beast"

 

The word “predicate” jumped up for the second to last line of the

above poem. Not completely positive if i should use it, but feeling

it right, I googled in this question – “What’s the meaning of

predicate?”

Below as above…

 

Below is the first entry for the query “what does predicate mean?”

Now that’s what I call an answer!

 

 

 

TheLogician.net

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC

© Avi Sion, 2002. All rights reserved.

 

4. The subject-predicate relation.

“Nagarjuna’s assault on reason includes an attempted critique of

verbal expression and the structure of language[1][1]. For him, words

are conventions devoid of deductively absolute or inductively

contextual meaning or relationships to each other. That he himself

engages in criticism by means of language does not bother him,

because he grants that it functions somewhat on a practical level, in

a “conventional” way, within ordinary consciousness. His goal is as

usual to take us beyond words and the illusions he claims they

create, into the higher mode of consciousness that puts us in contact

with ultimate reality. His means is to demonstrate that language is

illogical and futile, putting forward at least two arguments:

(a) He asks, “is the subject identical with or different from the

predicate?” His answer is stated by Cheng as follows. “If the subject

is the same as the predicate, they would be one and it would make no

sense to call one a subject and the other a predicate… the sentence

would be a tautology. If on the other hand, the subject is different

from the predicate, there would be no particular connection between

them.” In either case, predication is found redundant.

(b) Furthermore, “what is the status of the subject before

predication? Does it already have predicates predicated of it or

not?” (i.e. predicates “other” than the subject itself). “If a

subject is without any predicate predicated of it, it is

incomprehensible and non-existent. If a subject without a predicate

is non-existent, to what does our predicate apply? If on the other

hand, the subject does have some other predicate predicated of it

before we ascribe a predicate, what further function would be served

by ascribing and additional predicate since it already has something

predicated of it? If it needs this predicate, then a second and a

third can in principle be applied. This would lead to infinite

regress.”

By such arguments, Nagarjuna seeks to give the impression that

language is structurally unreliable and a stupid artifice. His

arguments are shaped in such a way as to seem logically orderly and

exhaustive, i.e. to consider all conceivable alternatives and

eliminate them one by one, so that we have no leg left to stand on.

He thus apparently uses some of the methodology of logic to convince

us. But of course the descriptions of the nature and role of

predication underlying his arguments constitute merely one particular

view[2][2], so that his premises are not in fact exhaustive and only

serve to show that his proposed view is faulty and to be rejected.

Thus, consider argument (a). Its first premise about tautology is

obvious and trivial, being itself tautological. More important, the

second premise is not at all evident. The subject may well be

“different from the predicate” and yet have a “particular connection”

to it. There is no logical basis for Nagarjuna’s proposed implication;

the antecedent concept (“different”) and the consequent concept

(“unconnected”) are quite distinct. If X equals Y in all respects,

then ‘if X, then Y’ and ‘if Y, then X’ must both be true (though it

does not follow that if they are both true, X = Y, since X and Y may

well not be simultaneous). X and Y are different, means ‘X does not

in all respects equal Y’, and so implies that X and Y are either

non-simultaneous, or that ‘if X, then Y’ and/or ‘if Y, then X’ is/are

false. Whereas X and Y are unconnected, means that ‘if X, then Y’ and

‘if Y, then X’ must both be false, as any lesser such relations

between X and Y. Thus, the former concept is wider than the latter,

and does not imply it.

The subject-predicate relation under discussion may and usually is

posited as, for instance, a classificatory one – a relation between

an individual and a class, or a subclass (species) and an overclass

(genus), so that the former is included in the latter without being

equal in scope to it. ‘Does not equal’ does not exclude ‘is greater

than’ or ‘is smaller than’ or ‘exists before or after’, or any other

non-equal relationship. Nagarjuna suggests that if the terms are not

identical, they cannot be related by the copula ‘is’ – but this

copula was never intended to mean total equation. Nagarjuna cannot

change the convention that ‘is’ is different from ‘equal’; or if he

insists on doing so and himself practices what he preaches, we can

simply invent another word for what we mean by ‘is’.

Since Nagarjuna’s second premise is unwarranted, his attempted dilemma is dissolved.[3][3]

Now consider argument (b). The first leg mentions a subject “without

any predicate” and claims it “incomprehensible and non-existent”, so

that eventual predication relative to it is senseless. The second leg

therefore suggests that a subject can only have one predicate (if any,

see earlier), and that ascribing more of them to it implies in each

case that the preceding one did not fulfill its intended function

(definition?) so that unending predication would be called for – an

impossible task. But these arguments are worthless, because Nagarjuna

clearly misrepresents predication; his view of it is a simplistic

caricature.

What do we in fact mean by a subject or a predicate? Primarily, an

object of consciousness – an individual concrete or an abstract

ultimately known through comparisons of such concretes[4][4]. This

does not imply that we consider all existents as objects of

consciousness, but only that as of the moment we think of something

(as here) we must admit it as appearance and therefore as existent.

Moreover, we need not and do not consider consciousness as invariably

correct and all its objects as real – we may well conceive of an

illusory object, which has no existence other than in the way of

appearance. Secondly, this object (be it real or illusory) may be,

and indeed has to be, cognized before we can name it and verbally

predicate anything of it.[5][5] Predication, like its terms, is an

object of consciousness before it is put into words. Consciousness of

terms and propositions about them may be wordless; words are merely

useful concretizations of intended objects of cognition. Also, before

terms are brought together in a proposition, the objects intended by

the terms have to be known (or believed, verbally or not) somewhat;

the proposition serves to add to that knowledge of the terms, by

observing or hypothesizing a certain relation between them.

Nagarjuna tries to suggest the opposite, that we only know things in

the framework of predication (and perhaps, of prior verbalization),

and that predication merely elucidates or restates knowledge (or

belief) already present in the terms. But we may reply that something

can well exist without/before being thought of, and be thought of

alone without/before being verbalized; and even if/when named, it

remains comprehensible without/before being made the subject of any

non-verbal or verbal predications; and furthermore that predications

are themselves objects of consciousness and that most of them enrich

the meanings of both subject and predicate rather than merely

redundantly repeating meanings already in them. Nagarjuna also

apparently confuses predication with definition, when he considers

that a single predication must suffice. In truth, any number of

predicates may be ascribed to a subject; predicates are numerous

because they are not tautologies of the subject; every term is a

complex with a potential positive or negative relation to every other

term. Even definition has no ambition to tell us everything about

something, but merely claims to focus on one set of predicates, which

seemingly abide invariably and exclusively with the subject; and a

definition may turn out to be erroneous.

In conclusion, Nagarjuna’s above arguments prove nothing but the

incoherence of the particular view of discourse he presents, and do

not succeed in invalidating all discourse. The superficial form of

his arguments is usually logical enough. But it is not enough to give

logical form to our rhetoric, i.e. that the conclusion follows from

the premises – the premises themselves have to be first be found

obvious or reasonable. It is the premises of Nagarjuna’s arguments

that I above contest as naïve and misleading; and my conclusion is

merely that his conclusion is not convincingly established.[6][6] The

theory of predication and underlying processes that I rebut his theory

with may not answer all questions about these issues, but it is

certainly more thought-out and closer to the truth.

To the objection that his use of language to communicate his ideas and

arguments implies an assumption (which he denies) that language

contains knowledge of some reality, Nagarjuna replies that language

is “conventional”. This vague accusation of divorce from all reality

has little content, so long as it leaves unexplained just how – in

convincing detail – such convention functions otherwise (for language

evidently does function, as his using it admits). We can also point

out that although words are in principle mere conventions, it does

not follow that knowledge is “conventional”.

First because that proposition, as a factual assertion, claims to know

something beyond convention about knowledge; and as regards content,

it claims the impossibility of any non-conventional linguistic

knowledge (including, presumably, the knowledge the proposition

itself imparts); whence, to assert that linguistic knowledge is

conventional is self-contradictory. Secondly, all conventions imply

factual knowledge: you have to know that there is a convention and

what that convention is supposed to be and how to apply it correctly!

You cannot have a convention about a convention… ad infinitum – it has

to stop somewhere factual. Knowledge of conventions is also knowledge;

a convention, too, is a reality in itself. It cannot float on an

infinity of empty conventions, it has to finally be anchored on some

real appearance.

Thirdly, because the conventionality of words is misunderstood.

Affixing a label on something, arbitrarily or by agreement, does not

imply that the ‘something’ concerned need not be previously known. We

can be aware of things, and even think about them, without words.

Words merely help us record rational products; giving us a relatively

tangible instrument to manipulate. The value of words is not in making

conceptual and logical thought possible, but only in making it easier

(facilitating memory, classification, communication). Convention is

therefore a secondary aspect of words; what counts is their meaning.

A language composed only of meaningless words, each entirely defined

by others, would have to be infinite in size, and would anyway

communicate nothing outside itself. If the language is finite, like

ours, it is bound to be based on some undefined prime words, and thus

(since content is only verbal, here) be devoid of content,

incommunicado. It could not even communicate its own conventions.

Thus, Nagarjuna’s dismissal of language as such is an incoherent

thesis, which upon closer scrutiny proves inconsistent with itself.”

 

LoveAlways,

Mazie

[1][1] See Cheng, pp. 117-118.

[2][2] A view reminiscent of Kant’s and other Western

philosophers’, incidentally.

[3][3] See Appendix 1: fallacies D and A.

[4][4] By ‘concrete’ I mean an experienced or perceived object, a

phenomenon. By ‘abstract’, an object of reasoning or conception. A

third class of object I do not mention here (so as not to complicate

the issues) – objects of self-knowledge or ‘intuitions’; suffices in

the present context to say that, in relation to abstracts, they have

the same position or role as concretes (namely, given data).

[5][5] See Appendix 1: fallacy G.

[6][6] See Appendix 1: fallacy D. Compare high-speed Internet

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